1305 starts its fall season off with the perfect end of summer show! Alan Vannoy's work is like the Fourth of July meets Halloween; creative energy meets lyrical whimsy. His process utilizes imagery and objects from everyday life- things he likes to pick up, collect, and assemble. There's a definite aesthetic to these "items" that immediately calls upon the motifs and color schemes of retro Americana. Primarily using printing techniques to render these different elements into often times layered and interwoven works, the pieces are like bits of early twentieth century illustration and Betty Crocker magazines laid on top of each other, peeled off, and then laid back on top again in reverse. As Vannoy himself says, "My work is past-tense propaganda, a call to reconsider things taken for granted so long ago."
I personally enjoy the work as an artist and curator because making work in my mind is so much about collecting things that inspire you on a daily basis and recalculating their relationships to each other in the studio. Making art and living are one in the same, or should be, and when they successfully fuse in the creation of a piece it seems to create something true and unassuming. In this way Alan Vannoy's work is approachable on a very real down to earth way, it draws you in and gets you to take your shoes off and stay a while. Once it's got you there, the work often unfolds to reveal discussions on very humanistic subjects like love, death, violence, and health.
For more info and to see images of past work check out:
www.vannoyart.com
